


I'm the Thorn in Your Side (Because That's Just What I Do)

by dragonspell



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-02
Updated: 2011-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-11 18:32:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7903243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonspell/pseuds/dragonspell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A trail of bizarre car wrecks have stretched across Wisconsin and Minnesota.  In Alexandria, Minnesota, Sam and Dean finally catch up with the mayhem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Imported from Livejournal on 8-28-16.

**Title:** I'm the Thorn in Your Side (Because That's Just What I Do)  
 **Author:** [](http://dragonspell.livejournal.com/profile)[**dragonspell**](http://dragonspell.livejournal.com/)  
 **Artist:** [](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/profile)[**lightthesparks**](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/)  
 **Fandom:** Supernatural  
 **Pairing:** Sam/Dean  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Warnings:** None  
 **Summary:** A trail of bizarre car wrecks have stretched across Wisconsin and Minnesota. In Alexandria, Minnesota, Sam and Dean finally catch up with the mayhem.  
 **Word Count:** 14615  
 **A/N:** Beta credits go to [](http://moragmacpherson.livejournal.com/profile)[**moragmacpherson**](http://moragmacpherson.livejournal.com/) and [](http://entropyrose.livejournal.com/profile)[**entropyrose**](http://entropyrose.livejournal.com/). This fic was written for [](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/profile)[**lightthesparks**](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/) [Love You Like Sin](http://loveyoulikesin.livejournal.com/) challenge. ...You know, the one that she had _last_ year.  >_> Um. Sorry about that. ^^ I'd like to thank [](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/profile)[**lightthesparks**](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/) for being so patient with me. RL and other commitments kind of got in our way on both sides. It's been a long time in coming but at least it's finally here. Check out more of [](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/profile)[**lightthesparks**](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/)'s amazing, amazing art over at her journal [here](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/76591.html).

  
[Part I](http://dragonspell.livejournal.com/169785.html) | [Part II](http://dragonspell.livejournal.com/170432.html) | [Art Post](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/76591.html)  


A few hours back, the roads had been clear as a bell. They’d since entered Narnia and now they just needed to find Mr. Tumnus—preferably before Dean managed to kill them.

“Dean.” Sam Winchester glared at his brother across the length of the Impala’s front seat. Dean grinned irritatingly back, framed by the snow banks flashing by in the window behind him as he draped one wrist over the steering wheel, just enough to keep the car steady. He should have been gripping it with both hands, but that was an argument that Sam had long since given up on. Right now, Sam had other pressing concerns. Like the fact that Dean was stepping down on the accelerator a little bit more, jumping the car from 75 to 80, in pure defiance of the snow-covered road and the fact that the light in the intersection dead ahead was bright red.

Sam sunk down in the seat, one hand clawing at the Impala’s door for purchase like it was his only hope of salvation—if they crashed, he didn’t want to go through the damn windshield—and glared some more as he clutched the variety of newspaper clippings that were sitting on his lap. He’d just assembled them into some kind of order. “Dean, that’s a red light,” he said tersely, turning his head to stare at the oncoming intersection. In full daylight, it was shining loud and clear like a fucking airplane warning strobe, bright against the overcast sky.

Dean shook his head, still smirking. “That’s not a red light, Sammy,” he said, correcting him. The fuck it wasn’t. Just to be contrary, Dean punched it even harder, the side of the road flying by now as they got closer and closer. Sam fought his own instincts to curl up in terror—he wouldn’t give Dean that kind of satisfaction—but that wasn’t going to stop him from preparing for eventualities. He braced his legs against the foot well, convinced that Dean was playing a big huge prank and was no doubt thinking that it would be just hi- _lar_ -ious to see Sam jerk forward when he slammed on the brakes.

“Really?” Sam snapped. “Because it looks red to me!” Dean didn’t make a habit of these kinds of ‘games’ but sometimes he got bored. All the driving got to him and he couldn’t help himself anymore. Sam hated them. …And considering that they were investigating a series of bizarre car accidents, Dean’s normal screwing around didn’t exactly seem to be the wisest choice at the moment.

“Sam,” Dean said, his grin widening as he glanced over at Sam, “just because it’s red, doesn’t mean that it’s a red light.” That made no damn sense. The intersection—a little pit stop on the outskirts of Alexandria, Minnesota—was coming up fast. They only had a few seconds left and Dean was still rocketing them straight at it. “That’s a ‘straight-on ‘til morning light.’”

Oh, God. He wasn’t going to stop, was he? “A _what?_ ” Sam stared at the rapidly disappearing strip of road in growing horror. “That’s ridiculous and Dean there’s a _car_ coming!” He jammed his finger against the window at a fast approaching blue Toyota coming up from the east but Dean shook his head again like _Sam_ was the crazy one. Sam abandoned dignity and dumped the papers off his lap, flattening himself against the Impala’s vinyl.

They blasted through the intersection with the needle of the Impala’s speedometer buried in the dash, zooming through just as the light turned green, and Sam thought that, for a brief moment, he honestly hated Dean. Just a little. He glanced at the side view mirror and saw the tiny Toyota was sitting peacefully at the now red light of the east side of the intersection. Dean crowed, slapping his hand against the wheel. “Beautiful!” he said. “Did you _see_ that timing?” He glanced over at Sam and then started laughing. Jackass.

“I hate you,” Sam hissed, pushing himself upward. “We could have died…” What would have happened if the Toyota had decided to run that light instead of stopping?

“Aww, Sammy,” Dean said. “You didn’t have to worry.” He patronizingly patted Sam’s head and Sam firmly shoved down the warm little glow that the touch caused. He was supposed to be _pissed_ , damn it. “You mean to tell me, you couldn’t see that yellow light on the other side, Sam? Come on, you knew that it was going to change. You had to.” Dean kept swinging his grin back as Sam before glancing out the windshield again to keep the car on the road like he was trying to get Sam to share in the joke. Sam ignored him and started picking up the clippings that he’d scattered back when he’d been convinced that they were going to die. The article that had brought them here—about a seven car pile up where every vehicle involved except for one had been totaled in increasingly bizarre ways—was underneath Dean’s feet. Sam bent over to grab it, his shoulder pressing up against Dean’s warm thigh. “You were the one complaining you were hungry,” Dean said with a shrug. “The sooner we get to town, the sooner you can eat.”

Sam huffed and his eyes cut over to Dean’s crotch. As close as he was, Dean would never know where Sam was looking and, pissed or not, Sam couldn’t ignore the fact that it would have been so damn easy to lean over Dean’s leg and run his mouth up the length of Dean’s fly—trace the hard ridge of the zipper and the bulge underneath.

But brothers weren’t supposed to do that kind of stuff. So Sam didn’t.

He hadn’t spent the whole of his awkward teenage years hiding his unbrotherly desires for Dean just to let them all spill out now—hadn’t spent years jerking off to thoughts of Dean and pretending that he was thinking of Dean’s porno mags if Dean caught him. If nothing else, Sam had self-will now. He grabbed the clipping and sat back up to coolly reorganize it in his pile of newspapers and insurance print-outs. He’d had them in chronological order, highlighting the distinct trail that stretched across Minnesota and Wisconsin, but now the mess in St. Paul was ahead of Madison and that just wasn’t right. “You know, Dean,” he said pointedly, “we are following a pattern of _car wrecks_. Charging through intersections like that is like waving a gigantic red flag.”

Dean snorted and patted the Impala’s dashboard, his fingers lingering on the vinyl in a fond caress. Sam forced himself to look away from Dean’s hand. “My baby knows I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. ...Unlike some other people I could name.”

“Yeah, well, your ‘baby’ doesn’t know anything until we figure out what we’re up against,” Sam grumbled, muttering under his breath. Dean rolled his eyes but otherwise let Sam get away with the dig and, feeling disappointingly unsatisfied about getting in the last word, Sam slumped in his seat to stare at the top clipping again. It didn’t tell him anything new. The article was full of vague little euphemisms, the author having sanitized the facts. The insurance print-outs and police reports, though, were more detailed. So the SUV that was listed as a case of ‘the driver losing control’ was really a case of the vehicle rolling over the three foot tall guard rail and up the nearest hill; the Dodge that had been buried underneath a sea of tennis balls before rear-ending the semi that had previously held the poorly packed pallets was wrote off as a victim of ‘unsecured cargo’—the same phrase used for the car that had been crushed by the runaway piano from the pickup truck. The truck—having been pounded into oblivion by a mini-storm of golf ball-sized hail according the insurance print-out—was merely listed as an ‘unfortunate event.’

It was unfortunate, all right. As far as Sam and Dean could tell, the drivers—and their vehicles—were all victims of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was nothing else connecting them besides the fact that they were on the highway west of St. Paul and apparently directly in the line of whatever was causing untold damage as it headed west. According to the newspapers that Sam had dug up, there was a trail of bizarre car wrecks stretching all the way back to Wisconsin—something the local press was blaming on the snowstorm that had blown through a couple of days ago. Sure, the six inches of snow had been _bad_ , Sam thought, but he didn’t think that it had been bad enough to cause so many accidents. There were more unsafe drivers on the road than Dean, true, but the numbers were adding up. Too many for it to be just people driving too fast for conditions. After all, _microbursts_?

Dean was whistling tunelessly to himself, drumming his fingers against the wheel. “So after we get into town, what do you say we— _Son of a bitch!_ ” Sam slammed into the door, his head rebounding off the window, as his world spun. He clutched at his head, wincing at the pain as the world tilted crazily outside the windshield. Dean swore, his hands gripping the wheel and fighting for control as he furiously pumped the brakes. Sam grabbed the dashboard and quelled the urge to puke like a victim of an out of control carnival ride.

The Impala plowed into a snow bank, her nose burying into the high drift of white as gravity slammed Sam forward. Dean swore again and the car door squealed as he kicked it open. “Motherfucking, cocksucking…” His voice trailed off, caught and blown away by the wind. Sam shivered as the chill cut through the dwindling warmth of the Impala’s interior and zipped up his coat before he opened his door, too. The clippings and printouts were lining the floor again but Sam would pick them up in a minute.

Dean was on his back in the snow, crawled up underneath the Impala, checking for damage and Sam knelt down beside him. “Fucking rodents, running across the damn road… Should be fucking _hibernating_ —”

“Dean?”

Dean pushed himself back out and glared at Sam. “What?” Sam cocked an eyebrow and Dean shook his head. “Fucking otter in the road. As near as I can tell, the car looks fine.” He stood up, dusting off his clothes, muttering about how he was going to “skin the little bastard.”

Sam didn’t bother to tell him that otters didn’t live this far south. “There’s ice on the road,” he said instead.

“Yes, Sam, I can see that.” Dean threw himself back into the car, slamming the door behind him. He waited until Sam was back in the car before continuing. “’There’s ice in the road,’” he mocked, shoving his voice up higher. Sam frowned; he didn’t sound like that.

But when they got back on the road, heading towards Alexandria again, Dean was driving slower. Sam took that as a win.

* * *

They had stopped by the scene of the accident, just a few miles before Alexandria but that didn’t tell them much beyond the fact that the police had been a little lax in gathering up all the pieces of the vehicles. Dean had picked up a sliver of chrome side molding and waved it at Sam, grinning, which had been about the highlight of their tour. Just like all the other accident sites that they had visited. No sigils carved into the ground, nothing special about the area, not even a lingering stench of sulfur—just a straight stretch of road. If there had been anything worth seeing, it was already gone.

The sun was starting to set on them as they reached Alexandria, the harsh light bouncing off the city limit sign. A bum sitting with his back up against the metal post waved as they drove by and Sam hesitantly gestured back before a fire truck cutting across the intersection up ahead caught his attention, the red flashing lights zipping by.

Dean picked out the cheapest motel that he could find—one that wouldn’t ask too many questions—or any questions at all, actually—and checked them in. The clerk held out the key for number 12 with a warning not to plug anything into to the electrical sockets on the south side (“Gettin’ those fixed next month”) and Sam quietly thanked the man. Chuckling, Dean slapped Sam on the shoulder and left to move their stuff in, grabbing a copy of the local newspaper on his way out, while Sam just hoped that there would be at least one working socket in the room for the laptop. The battery only lasted about a two hours and research always went faster with the computer than without it.

In the room—decorated circa 1974 with all the requisite oranges and browns and avocado greens and then never updated—Sam saw that there was exactly one outlet close to the Queen sized beds that lined the south wall. Unfortunately, it was occupied, filled by a lamp and an alarm clock. Sam shrugged and pulled the second plug free, blackening the red numbers. He’d always hated alarm clocks anyway. Alarm clocks had always meant drills again—wet, soggy drills in dewy grass and predawn light—unless Dad had been gone. If Dad had been MIA, then the alarm had represented teenage rebellion as Dean would just roll over and hit the snooze—buying another nine minutes again and again for over an hour until Sam got up and turned it off. Since then, alarm clocks had only gotten worse.

While Dean puttered around, setting up the usual salt lines and runes, Sam spread out the accumulated research on the rickety little table in the corner, separating them out to tack them up on the wall, one by one. He lined them up in the obvious pattern, setting them down along the map he’d put up first, pinning up the wrecks in St. Paul just below the large yellow chunk of metropolitan area. Dean eventually moved to stand beside him, taking a swig of beer from a long-necked bottle. He must have been hiding another six pack in the trunk. Sam watched Dean swallow, his eyes following every moment of Dean’s neck, and accepted the bottle that Dean thrust at him. He took a pull and stared at the map again. “It’s heading somewhere,” Dean said.

Sam nodded. “But where?”

“Fucked if I know,” Dean replied with a shrug. “But if it keeps it up, this town should be the next one hit. Probably already is.” Whatever they were following stopped in each major city or town along I-94 and wreaked havoc for a few days before continuing on. That meant that they had two to three days to track the thing down and kill it before it moved on.

Sam nodded and turned away from the board. He already had the words and pattern memorized. “We can visit the hospital tomorrow,” he said, sitting down on the bed. “Two of the drivers are still there.”

Dean chugged the rest of his beer and set the empty bottle down on the table. It wouldn’t be long before he started in on the Jack, now. Sam had seen the conspicuous fifth in Dean’s duffle. “Yeah, then we can go talk to Ms. Eye of the Storm.” Julie Wallace—the driver who had escaped the entire pile-up without even a dent in her fender despite being in the thick of it—had been released from the hospital soon after being admitted.

“Sounds good,” Sam replied. Three days. Hopefully they’d solve the case by then.

* * *

“Yeah, my fu—sorry—car was totaled. Totaled! I just bought the thing two years ago! But the insurance company says that it’s not worth paying for. I knew I shouldn’t have switched to Progressive!” Sam nodded sympathetically—at least he hoped it was sympathetically—at the middle-aged man in the hospital bed. The man’s legs were elevated, both broken and in thick white casts. “I mean, what am I supposed to do now? The wife won’t give her car up and I need to work but we won’t be able to afford another car! Not with Paul going to college! Worker’s Comp pays sh—I mean beans. It pays beans.” The man struggled up onto his elbows to try and peer at Sam’s notepad. It was futile but he was still trying. “Make sure you print that, okay? Real human interest story there. ‘Struggling Family Destitute Due to Freak Accident and Heartless Insurance Company!’ There’s a headline for you!”

Sam folded up his notepad. So far he’d learned that the man hadn’t seen anything but a flying piano and this was the first time that he’d ever been a part of anything like this—in between the ranting, of course. In other words: the man wasn’t going to be much help at all. “Thank you, Mr…”

“Jeffers. J-e-f-f-e-r-s. Remember to spell that right!” Mr. Jeffers tried to struggle into a sitting position but ended up flat on his back, panting. Sam smiled wanly.

“I will,” he assured him and backed out of the room before Mr. Jeffers could recover enough to try and demand more out of the ‘reporter’ in his hospital room. He’d already spent a half hour with Mr. Jeffers as it was and they still had other people to interview.

Sam nearly ran Dean over as he was waiting right outside the door, leaning against the wall. Dean caught himself before he fell, his hands flattening against the drywall. “Sorry,” Sam said, reaching out to steady him. “You’re done with Sarah Higgins?” Sarah Higgins had been the girl with the SUV that had rolled. Dean had called dibs when they’d walked into the hospital, taking the short list of names out of Sam’s hand.

Dean smirked. “We couldn’t do much, what with being in a hospital and the broken collar bone but—”

Sam rolled his eyes and cut Dean off. He didn’t need to hear about Dean’s exploits—fantasy or otherwise. “What did she say?”

“That since she was found ‘at fault’ her insurance company won’t pay for the car,” Dean said. “She’s also not a practicing witch, descended from a cursed ancestor, or a secret monster in disguise.” Smirking again, Dean leaned forward into Sam’s personal space to whisper. “I checked.” He winked mockingly and straightened back up. “I got nothing.”

Sam sighed. “Same story then.” They’d interviewed two other people involved in the accident and had come up empty-handed as well. They’d both only wanted to complain about how their cars were smashed to bits and the insurance company wasn’t going to pay for the damages—just like Jeffers and apparently Sarah Higgins. Dean and he had just lost two hours and not gained a thing.

“The other four were released yesterday, right? We could go check on them or—”

“Or we could go check on Julie Wallace,” Sam finished. Faced with interviewing some more clueless individuals who would undoubtedly be selling the same story or checking out the one aberration in the case, it was a no brainer.

Dean nodded, another smile crossing his face. “Let’s go check on Julie Wallace.”

* * *

Julie Wallace lived in an apartment complex on the East side of town and she bought their cover story hook, line, and sinker. “Coffee?” she asked brightly after setting Dean and him down on the living room couch.

“That’d be wonderful,” Dean said smarmily. He smiled at the young blonde, flirting with her. Sam elbowed him in the ribs.

“Actually,” Sam said, “we only have a few questions.” Dean glared but Sam kept his attention focused on Julie.

“Oh, all right,” she said, perching on the edge of the nearby armchair. “I don’t remember much, though. It’s all a little blurry.”

Sam smiled. “Yeah, that happens. Too much going on at once.”

“Oh, yes,” Julie agreed. “I mean, one minute, I was just driving along and the next it was just complete _chaos_ all around me. I saw the semi stop and the one car that—that…rolled. And…the piano…” She trailed off and smiled hesitantly at Sam. “It all happened so fast.”

“You weren’t injured, though?” Dean prompted, cutting in and Julie swung her blue eyes over to him.

“Oh no,” she said. “It was a miracle. I thank Him, you know.”

“Him?” Dean asked.

Julie reached up to grab her necklace, her fingers wrapping around the small golden cross. “Jesus,” she said firmly. “He kept me safe.”

“Riiight,” Dean drawled.

Sam cut him off. “Julie, have you noticed anything else strange happening around you?”

Julie’s eyes widened. “Other miracles?”

“Miracles, unexplained events, anything out of the ordinary.”

“New neighbors, maybe,” Dean added with a smile. “That sort of thing.”

“Oh, well, Lucy next door did get a new cat…” Julie answered uncertainly.

Dean dropped his head, biting his lip and Sam let him take the time out, picking up the slack. “Anything like your accident?” he prodded.

“Um…” Julie paused to think, her hand raising to hide her mouth. “Well, the Mitchells’ satellite dish did fall off their house yesterday. Ruined their garage, but it didn’t leave a scratch on their car. Maybe Jesus liked their car, too.”

“Was the car in the garage?” Dean asked, staring at Julie again.

“Yes. Right underneath the hole where the satellite dish came through, too. Bad news is, though, their car would have covered by the insurance company but their house isn’t. State Farm is refusing to pay to fix the garage so Jeff and Jodi are looking to switch their house over to Allstate, too. I told them that that’s what they should do. Make it cheaper, you know?” Julie giggled. “I have Allstate on both the car and the house because they gave much such a good deal on the package.”

“Well, you know those good deals,” Dean said sarcastically, raising his eyebrows. Sam forced the smile to stay on his face because he knew that that particular brand of sarcasm would fly right over Julie’s head. Sure enough, she giggled again.

“Thank you, Miss Wallace,” Sam said, standing up.

“Oh, please, call me, Julie,” she replied, glancing between him and Dean before settling on Dean. “Are you sure that you can’t stay any longer?”

Playing it up, Dean winked. “The story can’t wait.” He smiled again, nodding his head. “But thank you for your time.”

“Of course,” Julie said graciously, standing as well. “I shouldn’t keep you.”

“Just…one other thing, Mis—Julie.” Julie turned her attention back to Sam. “What’s the address of Jeff and Jodi Mitchell?”

“It’s just up the street. Two blocks north. Two story blue house on the corner.”

Sam jotted that down and smiled again. “Thank you,” he said, heading towards the front door.

“If there’s anything else that you might need, you just let me know,” Julie called after him.

“We’ll be sure to do that,” Dean assured her and Sam resisted the urge to bodily drag him out of the house. A little bit of flirting helped grease the wheels sometime and he understood that. He also understood that gathering information was all that Dean was doing but that never made it easier to watch. The jealousy threatened to eat Sam alive every time. Like with every one of Dean’s hook-ups, Sam just had to bite the inside of his cheek and ride it out. What he felt wasn’t normal and he knew that; it was a product of his fucked-up childhood—he couldn’t expect Dean to feel the same way.

He walked out the door and waited impatiently on the sidewalk. His imagination was running wild again, picturing in full High Definition detail how Dean would coax Miss Julie Wallace into shedding her good girl exterior. It was ludicrous, of course. Julie Wallace was the type of girl to expect promises that Dean couldn’t make but that didn’t stop the irrational part of Sam’s brain from insisting that it could happen. When Dean finally emerged from the house, Julie Wallace was still watching them from behind her white lace curtains.

Dean waved his open notepad at Sam. “Got her phone number,” he crowed.

“Fantastic,” Sam growled.

“Aw, Sammy, don’t be that way,” Dean teased. “She might have a sister.” He smirked and shoved his notepad into the pocket of his slacks as he got down to business again. “I told her to call if she could think of anything else about the accident. So we found out that Allstate is Jesus’ insurance company and Julie Wallace has no idea what happened to her.”

“Sounds right,” Sam agreed, rolling his shoulders uncomfortably. Interviewing the witnesses and the victims hadn’t gained them anything, just like investigating the crime scenes. At this rate, they were just going to have to hope that whatever it was that they were hunting just stumbled across them in the middle of doing its thing, like an unwary deer into headlights. Sam snorted. They’d have a better chance at winning the lottery.

Dean cocked his head. “What?” Sam asked, Dean’s action automatically putting him on guard. He was too used to Dean pausing before screaming at Sam to run.

“You hear that?” Dean asked. “Sounds like…”

They were close enough for Sam to hear and coming up fast. “Sirens.”

“Yeah. Two different kinds.” The sirens were coming fast from the south. Wherever they were going, it might be worth checking out but that meant getting to the Impala fast enough to try and chase them.

“Son of a…” Sam frowned down at Dean and Dean pointed over Sam’s shoulder. “ _Look_ ,” he said, pushing at Sam’s shoulder to turn him around.

Following Dean’s direction, Sam spun. And his jaw dropped. Just a few houses down from Julie Wallace’s, a two-story house was smoking, tiny flames licking at its window trim. As they stared, the sirens passed by them, the loud drone and red flashing light proclaiming a fire engine while the red and blue was a cop, speeding along after it. Sam touched Dean’s elbow and he nodded. Together, they jogged down the street toward the burning house.

The neighborhood was oddly peaceful considering the mayhem that was now going on. The trees lining the sidewalk blew gently in the breeze, ignorant of the mess of firefighters pouring out of and off the truck to yank the hose free. As Sam and Dean neared, one of the men barked at the others from the hydrant, yelling that they were ready and they opened it up, shooting a stream of high pressured water at the burning window. The flames had spread to the roof too, eating up the gingerbread trim of the gable and burning along the shingles. “Damn…” Dean said, staring at the scene. Sam nodded, his hands diving into his pockets uselessly. He felt an urge to help but he knew that he’d just be in the way.

A couple of the firefighters were entering the house now, pushing through the roiling smoke and he glanced away, unable to take the scene. The house was going up fast, like it was covering in gasoline and if there was someone in there…

Sam’s attention caught on the tall Oak tree across the road. Or, rather, it caught on the man _in_ the tree, jumping up and down on a branch like an overgrown child, laughing to himself as he stared down at the parked Camaro underneath him. It was almost…like he was trying to break the branch off onto the car… Sam frowned, puzzled, and took a step towards the road. Dean caught him. “Sam?” Then he followed Sam’s line of sight. “What the fuck…?”

Yeah. That was what Sam was thinking. Dean darted across the road, his hand already reaching underneath his suit jacket for the gun he carried in his waistband, leaving Sam to chase after him. “Hey, you!” Dean said, once he reached the other side of the street, coming around to stand beside the Camaro. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The man in the tree froze, crouching on the tree branch as he smiled down at them. Sam cocked his head, trying to place the man because he was certain that he’d seen him before, he just couldn’t remember where… The man was shabby—his once expensive clothes were beat-up and torn in places, covered in dirt. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in at least a week, with bruises and scrapes covering his face, and one lone white bandage, running just underneath the starting line of his shaggy hair. As Sam stared, trying to remember where he’d seen that face before, the man in the tree waved and winked before taking off like a shot, leaping out of the tree to hit the ground running.

“Come back here!” Dean shouted, tearing after him. He dodged around the tree and dashed off into a front yard as the bum jumped the dividing fence.

“Dean!” Sam chased after the both of them. He had no idea who the man was but something told him that the stranger was important and Sam had stopped questioning his instincts on these sorts of things. Dean jumped and caught the top of the wooden fence, hauling himself up and over in one smooth motion. “Dean!” Sam was going to lose him!

Sam threw himself over the top of the fence as well, his stomach scraping on the wooden boards as he rolled over the top. Dean was already half-way through the backyard and the bum was even further, leaping over a sandbox as he headed toward another fence. Dean curved around the pit of sand, one foot twisting on the ground to turn him back around to face the man who was already scaling the back barrier. Dean still had his gun, holding it tightly in one pumping fist, but he was going too fast to even think about aiming. Sam jumped over the sandbox as well, unwilling to take the extra half a second to dodge it.

The man and Dean were already in another backyard, swerving around a slide. They ran towards a swing set, Dean closing the distance. As he got within reach, the man spun around, grabbing up the hard metal chain of the swing and tossing at Dean. Dean ducked it but it cost him ground. Sam pounded after him.

They jumped through two more yards—Sam catching up to Dean—before they managed to close the distance again and this time, when the man turned to look at them, Sam could see the manic grin covering his face. It was the only warning he got before Dean pitched to the ground, shouting in pain. “Dean!” Sam stumbled and skittered to a stop on the grass, looking back at Dean as Dean writhed, clutching his leg and ankle. The bum cackled and darted off, jumping over another fence and disappearing into the suburban jungle.

“Damn it,” Sam swore under his breath and jogged back to his brother. The man was undoubtedly long gone by now and he couldn’t leave Dean behind. Dean was panting, worn out from the run, but biting his lip to try and suppress his pained groans as he tried to get back on his feet. Sam hit his knees in the grass, just missing the small hole that Dean had evidently tripped into, his hands gripping Dean’s shoulders. Dean attempted to stand, getting his good leg underneath him and cussed a blue streak as he tried to put weight on his other. “What’s wrong?”

Dean gasped and then grimaced, trying to hold his mouth firm. “Think I—think I might have busted my leg, Sammy…” he whispered and Sam swore again. He carefully wrapped an arm around Dean’s waist and tried to figure out the fastest route back to the car.

* * *

Dean didn’t like to be coddled. Sure, he’d had no problems playing it up for the pretty nurses, begging for extra coos, but the second that he’d been released, he’d been nothing but a pain in Sam’s ass. Sam knew that he should consider himself lucky that Dean only had a sprained ankle—two to six weeks, the doctor had assured him—and not a broken leg like he’d feared but Dean was still on crutches for the duration and bitching up a storm because of it. Especially once he’d learned that, because his right leg was out of action, he was stuck riding shotgun. Sam wasn’t about to let him drive—at least not for a couple of days anyway. Hell, _Dean_ was lucky that Sam hadn’t just picked him up in the parking lot and carried him to the car because watching Dean awkwardly maneuvering himself with the crutches was just painful.

Dean was starting to get the hang of them, though. It was all the pacing he was doing around the motel room. Well. Hobbling. “Would you sit down?” Sam finally snapped. Sam understood Dean’s frustration with not being able to move like he wanted to but if Dean kept this up, his ankle was never going to heal.

Dean glared at him. “Can’t,” he said.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Sit,” he ordered. “The doctor said that you shouldn’t be walking on it.”

“I’m gonna get a beer.”

Sam stood up and gestured to the seat in front of the computer. “If I get you a beer, will you sit down?” The last thing he wanted was to be Dean’s own personal butler but if it got him to stop pacing…

“Fine,” Dean said, flopping down in the chair. He stared at the laptop screen, his fingers resting on the keyboard and Sam smothered the urge to tell him not to look up porn. He knew that Dean would do exactly the opposite just to piss Sam off. Instead, he walked over to the far side of the room, grabbing a bottle of the cheap beer that Dean was favoring these days. “So what do we think this is?” Dean asked, pecking at the keyboard. “Some kind of humanoid gremlin? Manifested curse?”

Sam shook his head. He didn’t have a clue. “Could be a shifter,” he added but Dean shot that one down.

“One who takes an interest in cars? Nah. Not really their style, you know?” Sam agreed. He handed the cold beer to Dean who grinned. “Hey,” Dean said, waggling his eyebrows, “I think I could get used to this. Beer on demand.”

“Yeah, don’t count on it,” Sam snorted, sitting down in the opposite chair, watching as Dean took a long swallow. “Do you think that it’s a coincidence that he was in Julie Wallace’s neighborhood?” There was no doubt in Sam’s mind that the strange man from the tree was somehow related to the rash of accidents happening along I-94.

“Probably not,” Dean said, taking another pull and setting the beer down on the table. “I’m also thinkin’ that it might not be a coincidence that that house was burnin’ either.”

Sam frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Remember Julie talking about her neighbor’s car? How the satellite dish ruined the garage but not the car?” Sam nodded. “Yeah, well, I just checked the local newspaper of the last town we knew this thing hit. Check this out.” Dean spun the computer around so that Sam could look at it.

**Arsonist In Melrose?**

Sam scrolled through the article as it detailed a couple of suspicious house fires in the town. “There’s more, too,” Dean said. “And I’m guessing they go all the way back to Wisconsin.”

“This is bad…” How had they missed this? He brought up another newspaper, another couple of headlines. “It’s not a Gremlin, then,” Sam said, looking up at Dean. “Some of these things weren’t mechanical.” Gremlins notoriously liked to mess with mechanical things.

“No, it’s not,” Dean agreed. “So I don’t have a fucking clue.” He snatched up the remote for the TV and turned up the volume to cover up the sound of the wind howling outside while the local anchors bantered back and forth about the rash of accidents happening on the roads lately. The man tutted about unsafe drivers before the camera centered in on the woman as she began her report.

“The local weather is causing more than just delays. Major accidents are happening all over as people simply do not drive slow enough for the icy roads. Yesterday, a driver in an SUV ran off the road into the city limit sign. The driver claimed that a man had been walking in the road. Police are still investigating. Alcohol could be a factor. On Ridgewood Street today, another car was found overturned and officials think that the driver tried to take a corner too fast. A few other, non-vehicular accidents are happening due to the accumulating snow as well. One house’s roof caved in earlier today due to the excessive amount of snow and a large tree was brought down last night, a victim of the wind. Police are stressing for residents to use caution, stay off the roads whenever possible, and keep roofs clear of accumulated snow.”

“You know,” the man cut in as the camera panned back out to include him, “pedestrians walking across the street in weather like this is a major problem as well. With icy roads, cars can’t just stop. It’s best to use caution when crossing.”

“Yes,” the woman agreed, “Everyone should keep the weather in mind.” The roof above Sam groaned and he glanced up at it curiously. He hoped that tonight wouldn’t be too cold. Last night, the room’s lone heater had barely been enough to keep the room above freezing. If he could have assured himself that he wouldn’t let his hands wander, he would have crawled in with Dean just to preserve body heat.

As the anchors moved on to a local fluff piece, Dean flipped the TV off and opened his mouth. The ceiling creaked again and Dean paused, staring up at it. Sam squinted. Was it…bowing in the middle? The center light fixture looked closer that it had before…

The roof gave way with a shrieking of nails pulling free of their studs, wood and singles and mounds of snow coming crashing down into the center of the room. “Holy _fuck!_ ” Dean shouted, tossing himself out of the chair as snow gushed through the new opening. Sam caught him, dragging him to the side as beams started to crash onto the beds, smashing them to the floor. If they’d been over there instead of at the table…

Sam didn’t want to think about it. One of the heaviest beams had landed directly across Dean’s bed.

With one last gush of snow, the avalanche stopped and Sam was left clutching Dean, holding him up—Dean swaying awkwardly on one foot—as they both stared in disbelief at what was left of the room. It was covered in a solid layer of snow, with broken beams poking up towards the now visible night sky. The TV was sparking, having been hit by one of the beams, and snow was still sprinkling down.

Dean suddenly slapped Sam’s chest. “Guess we’re getting our security deposit back, Sammy.”

If Dean wasn’t depending on him for support, Sam would have shoved him.

* * *

Dean stared up at the bland, white ceiling of the motel room, wondering if this one would collapse, too. He probably shouldn’t be laying on the bed, just in case, but fuck it. His ankle hurt. ‘Sprained.’ If he’d been with Dad, Dad would have just told him to walk it off. Sam, though, Sam was forcing him to hobble around on crutches like he’d been crippled or something.

Dean couldn’t deny that it hurt like a son of a bitch to put weight on his right foot, though, so maybe Sam had a point. But he still didn’t believe Sam about the ‘no driving’ thing. They were going to have to talk about that. Dean could drive perfectly well—he’d use his left foot if he had to.

Dean had thought that the motel owner’s eyes were going to bulge out of his head when he’d surveyed the damage, taking in the fact that his paying customers had almost been crushed underneath his badly maintained roof. He’d quickly ushered Sam and Dean into a new room, even refunding their money which, hey, bonus. Almost get killed in a surprise avalanche and end up with a free room for a night. Dean could deal with that—it was a better deal than what they normally got. Sam was currently busy, though, digging all of their stuff out of the impromptu snowdrifts, seeing as how it had all been buried when the ceiling had collapsed. Dean had offered to help but Sam had just bitched at him to stay off the ankle again.

That was just fine with Dean. He didn’t want to go pawing through the snow anyway. Sam could do that by himself if he wanted. Dean would let him. Just as long as the damn ceiling didn’t collapse on top of him again. Dean glared at the ceiling and silently dared it to do its worst.

The door opened with a slight squeal of the hinges and Dean lifted his head to see Sam stepping inside. He smiled at Dean and dusted some snow off his hair and he looked so much like the little kid that Dean used to know that Dean had to grin. Sam might have shot up to gigantor-like height but Dean couldn’t forget that the giant was still his little brother. “It’s hot in here,” Sam said, stripping off his jacket.

Dean shrugged and laid back down. “I think there was a draft in the other room.” Plus, he’d cranked the heat up to 80 because he was tired of being cold but he wasn’t about to say that. The way that Sam had been acting lately, Dean would be lucky to not end up tucked in bed with some chicken noodle soup and a thermometer because Sam was convinced he was coming down with a cold or something.

The bed dipped beside Dean as Sam sat down beside him. “How’s the ankle?” Sam asked.

“Mummified. I can’t even wiggle it,” Dean replied with a sigh. You never realized just how much you used your ankles until you couldn’t anymore.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Sam said.

Dean shrugged again. “’snot your fault. The nurse is the one that wrapped it.” She’d been pretty and sweet but obviously new. Dean had decided not to fault her for that latter based on the former two. The bed shifted again and Dean finally glanced at Sam curiously, wondering what Sam was doing. The bed was moving way too much for Sam to just be sitting.

Sure enough, Sam was up on his knees next to Dean, one hand pressed into the bed by Dean’s shoulder as Sam loomed over him. Dean cocked an eyebrow but Sam ignored his unspoken question; he leaned forward and bowed his head, giving Dean only half a second of warning before he gently pressed his lips to Dean’s. Dean forgot how to breathe.

Sam’s touch was hesitant, barely there, just a soft ghosting trace but it had the power to make the world stop spinning. Dean felt as if he were being slammed against the wall, as if he were being choked, as if someone had sucker punched him when his guard was down. Sam was _kissing_ him. And despite the tentativeness of it, there was definitely intent behind it—intent and a half-asked question.

Dean found himself saying yes without even knowing what it meant. His only protest was the hand that he fisted in Sam’s hair but whether it was to pull Sam away or bring him closer, Dean wasn’t really sure. Sam, though, took Dean’s indecisiveness as permission and deepened the kiss, pressing harder, his tongue licking out to taste Dean’s mouth. Dean parted his lips instinctively, letting Sam in, and then he was wedging a hand against Sam’s shoulder and shoving him away. He panted up at Sam, wondering what the hell was wrong with Sam and what the hell was wrong with _him_ for caving so easily. “What the fuck, Sam?” Dean whispered.

Sam stared steadily down at him but he showed his nerves in the hesitant way that he licked his lips. This wasn’t a game. This was for real. “Got tired of not having what I wanted,” he said quietly and the idea was so ridiculous, Dean shoved it right out of his head.

“What happened outside?” he demanded. Sam must have been brain-scrambled or something. Possessed.

But Sam shook his head and started to pull away. “Forget it.”

Dean followed him up, pushing himself onto his elbows. “You come in and _kiss_ me and now you want me to forget it?” he asked. “What kind of fucked-up—”

“Right, Dean!” Sam snapped. “It _is_ fucked up! I mean, I want my older brother—it doesn’t get more fucked-up than that!”

Dean’s jaw dropped. “Want?” he breathed. This conversation… This conversation couldn’t be… Real.

“Yeah, Dean, want. Biblically.” Sam moved to sit on the edge of the bed and scrubbed a hand through his hair as his shoulders slumped. “Can’t believe that I just…”

The wheels of Dean’s mind were spinning, stuck in the mud somewhere between ‘Sam’ and ‘want.’ He rolled himself onto his knees and stared at Sam’s back. Sam was right: this whole damn thing was fucked-up. But Dean couldn’t deny that, for half a second there, he’d been going for it. Right alongside Sam.

It was fucked-up. There wasn’t anyway around that. But if Sam… If Sam wanted… And, maybe, Dean did too…

They’d never _not_ been fucked-up. Dean crawled forward on the bed until he was right beside Sam again. Sam wouldn’t meet his eyes so Dean took the choice away when he hauled Sam’s face around and kissed him.

Sam held absolutely still until Dean finally broke away. Then his brows furled downward in confusion and he opened his mouth. Dean cut off whatever he was about to say with another kiss. Fuck that. They didn’t need to talk about this. Sam had had the right idea in the first place. Gently, like he was afraid that Dean was going to break, Sam’s hand cupped the back of Dean’s head. Dean responded to the tentative touch with a nip at Sam’s lip and Sam shoved him backward.

Climbing on top again, Sam stared down at Dean, swallowing hard, and Dean tried to reassure him with a grin. He was going for his usual cocky bravado but it was shaky—easy, but shaky. Under the circumstances, he thought that he was allowed that. He was on a bed, making out with his kid brother, for crying out loud. It was a little outside the norm, even for them. But he still yanked Sam down by his hair, not even giving him a chance to say no. Sam was the one that had started this—he could see it through to the finish now.

Sam’s breath turned ragged—rough—and he made the kiss harder, more forceful—100 miles of passion, barely contained and coming straight at Dean. Dean swallowed a moan and held on for dear life, his hands burying in Sam’s hair to hold him back and keep him close at the exact same time. He accepted each rough kiss of Sam’s, meeting them and gentling them with one of his own. A hand was snaking up under his shirt, fingers dancing teasingly along his skin before gaining confidence and clutching at him like they were going to hold him there for the rest of his life.

Dean liked it.

He panted, pulling at Sam’s hair as he moved underneath of Sam’s body, arching upward and encouraging more. Now that he had given in, there was no sense in holding back. None at all. Sam’s elbow embedded beside Dean as Sam flattened himself on top of Dean.

Dean froze as he heard the motel room door opening but Sam kept on going, trying to coax Dean back into kissing him again. “Stop,” Dean hissed, pushing Sam back for some space. “Someone’s at the—” He twisted his head around and the words died in his throat because it wasn’t just _someone_ at the door, it was _Sam_. Sam, who was staring back at Dean with big, wide eyes in sheer shock—staring at Dean who had been happily writhing underneath of _another_ Sam like a two dollar whore. And, if Sam was over there, then who was…? Dean jerked his head back to stare at the man on top of him.

The stranger no longer looked like Sam and Dean felt more than a little sick—the nausea weaseled in with the hefty dose of fear and adrenaline and kept him frozen despite his instincts screaming at him to either run or fight. Sam’s familiar features had melted into a scruffy, beaten-up face with a white butterfly bandage right beside his eye. Dean’s blood went cold. He knew that face. It had grinned down at him from a tree branch above a parked Camaro earlier today. The man—their monster—smiled apologetically. “Really sorry about the ankle,” he said and then he was up off of Dean and charging at Sam.

Dean rolled off the bed, slamming into the floor as his ankle gave out underneath him. “Sam!”

The creature reached Sam and tossed him aside like he was a sack of potatoes, throwing him out of the open doorway. Sam rebounded off the door, catching himself on the knob, but his instincts were on and he twisted to pull the gun out of his waistband. Dean crawled toward him, cursing at the pain shooting up his leg. “Sam!” he repeated. Sam glanced at him, his lips firming, and then he was off, tearing after the creature, running outside alone.

“Sam!” Dean pounded his fist against the orange carpet and struggled to haul himself up. He tried to put weight on his ankle again and swore as another hot surge of pain dissuaded him. There was no way that he was going to be able to do a mad dash out into the darkening light of the motel parking lot after Sam. No fucking way. He’d be stuck hobbling along on crutches at best and this _sucked_.

A bright flare caught Dean’s attention and he jerked his head around to stare at the table against the far wall, where Sam’s laptop was sitting. A burst of flame had erupted along the power cord, licking at the dark plastic. “Fuck!” Dean threw himself to the side and rolled across the room to yank the cord out of the wall outlet, stopping the flow of the electricity and killing the fire’s source. He braced his right knee underneath of himself and stood on his one good leg to pull the jack out of the back of the laptop and chuck the entire cord outside the open door onto the cement sidewalk.

He glared at it, leaning on the table for support. If that hadn’t been another one of whatever the fuck they were hunting’s tricks, Dean would eat his left testicle. “What a _douchebag_ ,” Dean growled, letting himself feel pissed at just how much nerve the creature had had to just walk into a hunter’s lair and start setting shit on fire with freaky-deaky mind powers.

It was much easier to focus on that than to think about how much he’d just royally fucked himself.

* * *

  
[Part I](http://dragonspell.livejournal.com/169785.html) | [Part II](http://dragonspell.livejournal.com/170432.html) | [Art Post](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/76591.html)

  



	2. Chapter 2

  


  
[Part I](http://dragonspell.livejournal.com/169785.html) | [Part II](http://dragonspell.livejournal.com/170432.html) | [Art Post](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/76591.html)  


Sam had known it was a stupid thing to do the moment that his feet hit the hard asphalt of the road but he just hadn’t been thinking. All he’d done was see the thing on top of Dean and he’d reacted. There’d been no thinking involved. No plan. If there had been, he would have known that charging blindly after the creature wouldn’t get him anything. Not with night falling and visibility dropping to just about zero.

Sam slowed down to a jog, watching the _deer_ that the creature had turned into bound off down the road. He was just lucky that the thing hadn’t turned on him because it had been _stupid_ to take off after it alone. Dean was back at the motel room, no doubt cussing him out and—Sam stopped his thoughts right there. Dean was _alone_.

Fear pounding through his heart, Sam ran back to the motel room to see the door still sitting open like he’d left it. Dean was leaning against the jam, glaring down at a black cord on the cement like it had personally insulted him and Sam swallowed hard because seeing that Dean was safe was allowing other thoughts to run through his mind now.

Like what he’d seen Dean doing. Dean had been on the bed, underneath what looked like Sam and he hadn’t been protesting at all until he’d heard the door squeak. No, Dean… Dean had been quite willing.

Dean had been _willing_. Willingly kissing Sam. Sam felt sick and hopeful at the exact same time because Dean had been kissing a man who he’d thought was Sam…but Sam had no idea why. He knew what he _wanted_ , but he had no idea if it was true. There was no way of knowing if the monster had just encouraged Dean or if he’d threatened him.

Dean turned away as Sam came closer, disappearing back into the room without meeting Sam’s eyes, and Sam felt his heart sink. “He get away?” Dean asked the wall gruffly as he hobbled back over to the bed.

Shrugging, Sam followed him in, stepping over the cord. “He, uh, turned into a deer.” Recognizing the cord on the sidewalk, Sam frowned over at his computer which was still sitting on the table though there was now a black mark where the charger should have been. “What happened to the laptop?”

Dean dropped himself down on the bed with a groan, easing his bad leg out in front of him. “It caught on fire,” he said. _Fire?_ His eyes flicked up to meet Sam’s. “A _deer_?” Sam nodded as Dean scrubbed at his chin. “Jesus. And I’m pretty sure the laptop was another sacrifice to the gods of mayhem. …This changes things.”

Sam nodded again. The creature was obviously more than just a shifter. More than a gremlin. More than a curse. Gods of mayhem were right. They had to start researching all over again.

…But that really wasn’t what Sam wanted to do right now. The air was still tight with tension from ignoring the elephant in the room and that elephant was the only thing that Sam wanted to explore. He stepped over to the bed, closer to Dean and looked down at him, trying to figure out the best way to approach the subject. He knew that if he didn’t do this right, then it would just start an argument and nothing would happen. “Dean…”

“Let’s not and say we did, Sam,” Dean replied, cutting Sam off before he even got a chance. “Let’s just not go there.” Dean’s knuckles were whiting out as he gripped the bedspread.

Sam swallowed. He didn’t want to let this go. He couldn’t. “But…”

“Drop it, Sam!” Dean snapped. Then his voice dropped back down, low and soft as he added, “Please?”

Sam’s chest hurt. He’d had a moment where he’d been able to see what he’d always wanted—see what it would be like if Dean wanted him back—and now it was being yanked away. He was supposed to act like it had never even happened. Sam sat down on the bed beside Dean and stared at the floor. He could almost feel the nervousness rolling off of Dean, tension slamming against Sam like a brick wall. Sam hunched his shoulders against it. “What if I really want to go there?” he asked.

“Goddamn it, Sam…”

“I know what I saw,” Sam said stubbornly. He just had to _know_. He had to know…if he had a chance or not.

“You don’t know _shit_ ,” Dean shot back. “You don’t know everything, Sam, so stop pretending that you do!”

Sam ignored the bait that Dean was tossing at him. “I saw you kissing me—a guy that looked like me—and it looked like you liked it…”

Dean turned to glare at Sam, his jaw set firm. “Yes,” he bit out. “Yes, I liked it. Is that what you want to hear, Sam? I thought it was you on top of me and I fucking _liked_ it.” Dean pushed himself to his feet as his voice got louder. “Are you fucking happy, now? Can we fucking drop it?”

“No,” Sam replied, his heart clenching painfully because he was close—so close—and it was likely that he was about to throw himself off a cliff. He’d never had the choice not to, though. As soon as he seen his dreams become a reality, there’d been no choice for him. “I can’t fucking drop it, Dean. Because I liked it, too.”

Dean stared at him, paling. “You…”

Sam dove off head first. While Dean sat frozen with shock, Sam leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the lips that he’d fantasized about since he was thirteen years old, claiming them back from the monster that had pretended to be him. The monster that Dean had kissed back because he’d thought that it had been Sam… Sam would have better luck pretending that the sky was green than to pretend that he hadn’t seen that, that he hadn’t wished that it was him.

For a few long seconds, it was just the press of Sam’s lips against Dean’s—chaste and unmoving as Sam counted his heartbeats. _One, two, three, four…_ And then Dean was kissing him back, unrestrained and making Sam fight for each little inch. His hands rose to bracket Sam’s face, holding him, and Sam’s heart skipped a beat. Dean was kissing him. Dean was actually kissing him…

Sam pushed Dean flat and crawled overtop of him, set on claiming every inch of Dean that he could, marking with his fingers and his tongue. Dean pulled him forward, warning him quietly to mind the leg but otherwise not protesting the change in positions. Sam wanted to pinch himself, just to make sure, but he wasn’t willing to risk it. He contented himself by deepening the kiss—licking along Dean’s lips and begging for the permission that Dean granted easily.

The loud ringing of the phone startled both of them. Dean shoved Sam off of himself as if someone were breaking down the door instead of calling. Sam just barely caught himself on the edge on the bed, narrowly avoiding face-planting in the cheap carpet. “Sorry,” Dean muttered as he reached for the phone.

Sam glared at the phone and then watched Dean nod his way through the conversation, thinking about just crawling into Dean’s lap and continuing what they’d been just doing.

“Uh, yeah…” Dean said. “Sure, okay.” He looked over at Sam, mouthing the word _paper_. Sam cocked his head curiously before getting up to snatch a pad off the table. “Yeah, hold on… 67 Crestview?” Dean rolled his eyes up to meet Sam’s again and Sam took the hint, writing down the address. “Yeah, got it.” Dean dropped the phone back into the cradle and rubbed at his forehead. He slid off the bed, standing on his one good ankle and Sam mentally cursed whoever had been on the other side of the line. “Pack up, Sammy. We’re movin’.” He hopped between the double beds out into the open area in the center of the room. Sam was tempted to grab him and force him back onto the bed.

“What? Why?”

Dean hobbled to the table in the corner. “Pipes just burst. Owner’s sending us to another place.”

“It’s not even cold enough to—”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “One more ‘fuck you’…” Sam had to agree. Just like the laptop cord, the pipes bursting had to have been a parting gift from the creature that they were supposed to be hunting.

It seemed more like it was hunting them.

* * *

It didn’t hit Sam until after he heard Mrs. Rochester, the owner of the bed and breakfast that he and Dean had moved to, nattering on about how “Kyle is an old friend of ours so we didn’t mind putting up his guests for the night. Shame, shame what happened, you know? And I hear the insurance companies aren’t granting any claims—just like on the cars! That’s why me and my husband use Allstate. They’d never reject one of _our_ claims, no siree! And with that ‘accident forgiveness’ that they have, we wouldn’t even see a jump in our premiums, either, just because of a string of bad luck.”

Walking down the flowered wallpapered hall, Sam nudged Dean with an elbow, directing Dean’s attention away from the portraits of Siamese cats lining the wall, and asked, “Have you had to make any claims lately, Mrs. Rochester?”

“Oh no!” Mrs. Rochester exclaimed, looking back at him. “No, thank the Lord. We’ve been quite fortunate. I mean, the Wilsons’ just had their roof cave-in the other day—same as Kyle!—and Mike Schuster got into that terrible accident—coon in the backseat, what a way to go—but we’ve had no problems. Lord willing, we’ll make it through this year just fine, same as always.” She grabbed the doorknob of number 6 and unlocked it with a long, spindly key. “Well here we are! I’m putting you boys up in number 6 for tonight. It’s only got the one bed—sorry—but it’s a big one and there is a couch. Might be a bit cramped. We just don’t have all the rooms with double beds like Kyle! Not used to using ‘em. We mostly get… Well, we mostly get couples. And I’ve already filled the two rooms that we had, so I hope this will be okay?”

“It’ll do fine,” Sam assured her, smiling. One bed meant…

She dropped the key into his hand. “Oh, good. I hope you boys have a great night and let me know if you need anything!”

“Sure thing,” Dean said with a nod and a grin. Faced with both smiles, old Mrs. Rochester looked a bit torn, swiveling her head between the two of them before giggling like a schoolgirl and heading back down the hall. Dean quirked his eyebrows and hobbled inside the room, flipping on the lights.

The room was decorated in pale pinks and white lace and, as Sam glanced around the room, he could feel whatever sense of manly pride he had shrinking inside of him. Dean stared down at the bed with its ruffled and lacey sheets and then looked over at Sam almost nervously. They hadn’t talked at all in the car on the way over and Sam could feel that new aspect of their connection thrumming between them. He just hoped that Dean wasn’t having second thoughts. Sam cleared his throat and dropped his duffle on the table to unzip it and pull out the insurance reports. He just wanted to check. “So you know how everyone we’ve talked to on this case has complained about their insurance?”

Dean nodded and gently eased himself down on the fluffy bed. “Except for Julie Wallace and her customer testimonial.”

“Right,” Sam replied. “And…” He glanced over at Dean and felt his words dry up in his throat. Dean was absentmindedly running two fingers over the inseam of his jeans, paying attention and distracting Sam at the same time. Sam shook himself. Work came first. It always came first. “And anyone that’s had Allstate.”

Dean snorted. “So, what are you saying? Allstate’s full of devil-worshippers or something? Come on, Sammy, everyone hates insurance companies but…”

Sam flipped through the insurance print-outs. “It’s a pattern, Dean. Look: Progressive, Geico, Nationwide, State Farm, a couple of local agencies—there are a ton from all these different companies but not a _one_ is from Allstate and they’re huge. Don’t you think that means something?” He handed the stack to Dean who rummaged through them himself, frowning.

“…Okay, so maybe there’s a connection. How do we prove it?”

There was the hard part. Sam stared down at Dean. “We have to catch this thing that we’re hunting.”

“Oh, that’s peachy,” Dean said, looking up from the papers. “And, while we’re at it, we can try herding some neighborhood cats. Maybe catch a couple of unicorns.” Sam’s mouth twisted and Dean tossed the papers onto the bed. “We haven’t exactly had much luck in, you know, catching this thing, Sam.” He pointed at his ankle. “Remember?”

Sam nodded. “Sure. But if this thing is something that somebody at that insurance company summoned to cause chaos for their rivals, then there’s a good possibility that it doesn’t want to work for them.”

“So, what? You just want to ask him, ‘Hey, douchebag! How do you feel about Allstate?’ and see if he spills his guts?”

“Something like that, yeah.” Sam pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“Who’re you calling?”

“Bobby,” Sam replied. “See if he knows how to catch something like this.” Dean nodded, looking down at the bed before he got up and hobbled over to the table where the laptop was sitting.

* * *

It had taken Bobby about five hours to find an answer for them. Despite Bobby’s initial grumblings about “I have no friggin’ idea!” Sam had known that the old hunter would come through for them. He always did. In the meantime, Dean had managed to dig up some dirt on the CEO of Allstate, finding rumors of scandals involving witchcraft during the CEO’s youth which, when combined with Allstate’s financial printouts—a decline until the accidents started happening then a miraculously sharp rise—was all Sam needed to make him want to turn right around and head to Illinois where Allstate was headquartered.

Dean had fallen asleep about two hours into their wait time and Sam had occupied himself with alternating between researching and watching his brother sleep. Eventually, watching Dean had won out—years, Sam had been waiting—now he just needed this job to be over with—and Sam had stretched out beside Dean, staring at his face.

When Bobby had called a few hours later, it had woken both of them up. “From what you boys are telling me,” Bobby had said, starting in without even so much as a ‘hi,’ “it sounds like an elemental force that’s been shoved into a shape. There are stories of this kind of stuff happening—stuff like Hope embodied because of a spell. Bad things happen if you condense something that’s supposed to be world-wide into a tiny little shell. And this sounds like some damn fool got a hold of Mayhem—Chaos—and now he’s pissed. If this thing is what I think it is, you won’t be able to catch him, but you might distract him long enough to a clue how to stop him. You have to find whoever summoned him and get a hold of their ‘contract’—something or other that is forcing an elemental in a concentrated shape like that. Then get rid of it. Break it, burn it, destroy it—just make sure this thing doesn’t get you first, alright?”

Now armed with a handful of silver trinkets perfumed with the herbs Bobby had proscribed and a couple of back-up plans in case Bobby’s hunch was wrong, Sam and Dean were walking across a park, peering into the darkness that was surrounding them. Sam had seen the suspicious ruffling of trees and so he and Dean had left the Impala behind.

“If this doesn’t work…” Dean started.

“It’ll work.” Sam stared upward at the huge statue in the center of the clearing and wrinkled his brow. The twenty-five foot Viking stared peacefully back.

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Well that’s impressive.” Then he elbowed Sam sharply and pointed just to the right of the statue. “There,” he whispered.

Directly beside the statue, leaning against it, was the beat-up form of the bum. He looked to be…pushing. Sam pulled the silver out of his pocket and cautiously moved closer, trying to sneak up on the creature in the darkness. As they neared the podium that the statue was sitting on, they could hear laughter as the creature chuckled to himself.

The laughter cut off as the creature jerked his head up and started to scent the air and his eyes turned unerringly to Sam and Dean. He smiled like a wolf and stood up straight as he jumped down from the platform. “The night’s a dangerous place,” he said, prowling towards them. “And neither one of you has insurance.” Sam held the silver trinkets out and the creature’s eyes locked on them.

“Brought you a present,” Dean said, picking up a bracelet and jingling it. “How about you come and get it?”

The creature stared, mesmerized and slunk closer, his human-looking face taking on a decidedly inhuman appearance as his nostrils flared. “…Give it to me.” He held his hands out, fingers curled upward.

Sam drew back his arm, holding it against his chest. “An exchange,” he proposed. “You can have it if you tell us why you’re here.”

Rolling his eyes, the man slipped closer. “I’ve always been here,” he said dismissively. “I’m Mayhem.” Bobby had been right. “Now give it to me.”

“Not good enough,” Dean replied. His hand was resting on his gun—an instinctive move and not a threat because if the creature—Mayhem as he said—in front of them really was an element, then the gun wouldn’t do any good.

“You already know and I’m not allowed to tell you.” The man’s teeth flashed white in the darkness. “Not in my contract. I’d really like to _burn_ it, but, well…”

Sam cocked his head. “So where do you keep your contract?”

Mayhem licked his lips, pausing like he was trying to decide if this was against the rules or not. “In his office,” he finally said. “The book, too. I’d burn both of them.” The man hissed and darted forward—to quick for Sam to follow—snatching the trinkets out of Sam’s hand. He wrestled with Dean for control of the bracelet and then ran off, zipping into the surrounding trees.

Dean had pulled his gun, aiming it at the fleeing creature but he didn’t fire, just swore as Mayhem ducked out of sight. “So much for the bait,” he growled.

Sam shook his head. “He told us where to go. He said that we already knew.”

Holstering his gun, Dean glanced over at Sam. “You mean Illinois and that crazy, antique-shopping CEO guy?”

“Yeah.” Sam was positive that Mayhem had told them that—and done it deliberately, too. “He wants us to go burn his contract.”

Dean shrugged. “Let’s go set some shit on fire, then.” Sam nodded and turned to head back to the Impala.

A loud crack echoed through the clearing and Sam turned around just in time to see the Viking—Big Ole—pull free of its setting and start to fall right towards them. Sam shoved Dean to the side, then turned him and dragged him a few more feet before the statue came crashing down. Dean panted at Sam’s side, staring at the fallen Viking, before he snarled. “Fucking _douchebag_.”

* * *

The drive to Illinois really should have taken them over eight hours. With Dean behind the wheel, it probably would have taken them just over five. With Sam driving and Dean nagging, however, they made it in six and a half. They’d parked the Impala a couple of blocks away and Sam tried hard not to think about the fact that he was breaking into an insurance building at four in the morning.

Dean was rummaging through the overly large desk of the top floor office, not even trying to be subtle as he emptied out entire drawers. Sam didn’t say anything, though, because they were running out of time. He just kept searching through the multitude of black filing cabinets that lined the walls. “He said that it was in the office, right?” Dean growled.

Sam nodded and slammed a drawer shut, pulling out the one under it. “Yeah,” he said, briefly pulling the flashlight out of his mouth.

Grumbling to himself, Dean knelt down to pick another lock. They didn’t have the slightest clue what the contract would look like. Sam was just hoping that it would be located in a file conveniently marked “Demonic Spells” or something.

Dean dumped the entire drawer onto the floor, pawing through it before sighing. “He’s probably got it in some hidden safe or something, Sam. We’re never going to find it.”

“Dean—” Sam turned towards him but Dean was crawling towards his duffle bag, apparently not wanting to expend the energy to get to his feet at the moment.

“It’s time for Plan B,” Dean said, rifling through the bag.

“Plan B?” Sam slammed the cabinet shut again—after all, alphabetically, he was already in the Ps and thus a long way away from D for demonic or M for Mayhem—and moved to peer over Dean’s shoulder.

Dean crowed as he held up a tightly wrapped brick and Sam’s eyes widened. “No,” he said. “No, Dean we can’t—”

“Why not?” Dean said. “Building’s empty and they got insurance don’t they?”

Sam didn’t know how to explain this one. “Dean, we can’t just _bomb_ the building with C4! We have to…have to…” Sam didn’t know what they had to do—it was obvious that they couldn’t find the contract _or_ the book—but he was pretty sure that it didn’t involve blowing up an entire building.

Dean solemnly handed Sam the brick but his eyes were betraying him: they were dancing with excitement. “Blowing up a building’s a lot better than all the people the dickwad of a CEO’s injured. If we don’t stop it, Sam, it’s just going to keep getting worse and what happens with Mayhem goes a little too far and somebody dies? Dies because we couldn’t find a stupid piece of paper in an office?” Sam’s moral resolve wavered. When Dean put it like that… “Exactly,” Dean said. “Now go plant this stuff. We’ve got a building to blow up.”

* * *

No matter what complaints Sam might have about Dean, he could never say that Dean didn’t give his all when finding a solution for a problem. Dean didn’t believe in doing anything by halves so, just in case there was a chance that the C4 would just blow up the office and not actually burn the document in question, they’d doused the entire room in lighter fluid before sneaking back out of the building and heading down the block. “You ready?” Dean looked entirely too excited to be holding the detonator, like a kid on Christmas as he alternated between looking at Sam and back at the building. Sam wanted to tell him that C4 was a lot of money but Dean already knew that—that was why they’d stolen it. Instead, he sighed and dropped the two-way radio transceiver down from his mouth, having successfully lured the two security guards outside. And he nodded.

The top floor of the building exploded, the brick and the glass shattering outward as it became engulfed in flame. Car alarms triggered and no doubt the police and the fire department were already on their way but it was too late. Allstate Corporate Headquarters was a goner for sure.

Sam tore his eyes away from the bright flame to look over at Dean and his breath caught in his throat. Standing right beside Dean was none other than Mayhem, looking just as scuffed and dirty as ever. But he was grinning as he stared at the building. “It’s so beautiful,” he said, a hint of glee in his dark voice.

Dean jerked away, stumbling into Sam as his crutches clattered onto the ground. “ _Jesus_ ,” he swore, catching himself on Sam’s coat. Mayhem grinned at the both of them.

“Gotta say, I like your style.” He wasn’t looking as solid as before—thin and wispy like he was fading away, disappearing. Like since the contract was burning up, he couldn’t hold a corporeal form anymore. He winked at them and then he was gone, dissolved into the air.

Dean grunted, swaying on his one good leg, his fist still tightly clenched in Sam’s jacket. “Still a douchebag,” he said. Sam just shook his head and bent down to grab Dean’s crutches.

“Let’s get out of here.” The fire blazed behind them, eating away at what had once been the headquarters of Allstate, as they ambled slowly away, Dean on his crutches and Sam walking slow to allow him to keep up. Somewhere in the distance, they could hear the telltale sounds of sirens.

* * *

By the time that they checked into a motel outside of Huntley, their little foray into the world of arson was already splashed on the morning news. Dean—sprawled out across the pale green bedspread—was watching a perky blonde chatter about it on TV as Sam laid the salt lines. Exhaustion was fast catching up with Sam—with both of them, actually—but safety always came first.

“A fire destroyed a corporate headquarters this morning in Northbrook. Police are calling the fire ‘suspicious’ and are looking into the source of the blaze—” The TV flipped off with a quiet blip, leaving the room in silence. When Sam glanced over at Dean to see what was going on, Dean was staring back at him. Dean’s eyes slowly traveled over Sam’s body and Sam was suddenly wide and awake and remembering that he and Dean had done much more than burn down a corporate headquarters or meet Mayhem in the flesh. So much more. Maybe not for according to the rest of the world, but to Sam…

Sam quietly finished the last line of salt across the window and moved to stand beside Dean’s bed, waiting for a sign from Dean that it was okay—that now that everything was said and done and they weren’t on the job or running for their lives and Dean finally had time to think, that they could still do this. Sam knew that it was too late for him to have second thoughts—those were already long gone but for Dean… For Dean, he just didn’t know.

When Dean lazily dropped his eyes to Sam’s crotch and slowly licked his lips, Sam had his answer. Hardly daring to breathe, Sam pulled off his shirt and kneeled on the bed, still quietly waiting to see how far Dean was willing to take this. Dean pulled off his own shirt and settled back against the bed, his finger repeatedly curling upward in invitation. Sam obediently came closer, crawling closer to where Dean was laying on the pillows. With the TV off, the only sound in the room was the slow buzz of the old heater and the harshness of their own breathing. Sam shivered and decided not to talk. He didn’t want to risk it.

He carefully moved over Dean’s body, straddling his hips and watching the heat rise in Dean’s eyes before he bent his head and pressed a gentle kiss against Dean’s lips.

Dean’s hand clamped into place, fingers threading through Sam’s hair as he forced Sam closer, his mouth already parting in welcome. Sam gave into the quiet demand and ran his hand along Dean’s smooth, bare chest as his tongue slipped between Dean’s lips to swirl inside. Dean’s hips rolled underneath of Sam, rocking Dean’s cock against Sam’s and forcing a small whimper of need out of Sam.

This was Dean—Dean beneath him, wanting him; Dean encouraging Sam to do more. After years of denying the possibility, here it was, all laid out in front of Sam, Dean all but begging for Sam to reach out and take. Sam’s hands reached up and cupped Dean’s face as he tried to reassure himself that this was really happening—that this wasn’t just a dream or wishful thinking.

Dean responded by running his own hands down the length of Sam’s chest and dipping beneath his waistband. Sam’s hips bucked and then he was scrambling to unzip his pants, get them off and do the same to Dean’s. As soon as Sam’s pants were loose enough, Dean’s hands slipped inside, his finger massaging over Sam’s hard cock, still trapped in his underwear. Sam moaned into Dean’s mouth and slid his own hands inside of Dean’s jeans, fingers teasing at the soft fabric of Dean’s boxers as Dean’s dick twitched towards him. Sam dug in, his fingers wrapping around the hardening length of Dean’s dick.

“Fuck, Sammy,” Dean whispered, turning his head to gasp before coming back, kissing the side of Sam’s face and nipping at the line of his jaw. He panted as his hand began to stroke and Sam groaned. Dean’s hand felt good on him—it was an awkward angle and Dean couldn’t get any speed but Sam was about to come just from the fact that it was _Dean_ that was touching him. Sam rolled his hips, keeping in time with Dean’s short pulls, and ran his lips over Dean’s shoulder as he pulled Dean out of his underwear and began to return the favor.

More than just arousal was shaking Sam’s body—fatigue was creeping up on him, making his muscles tremor despite the fact that his wildest dream was coming true. To try and save himself for the end, Sam rolled and collapsed onto his side—it allowed him to get a better grip on Dean as well and Dean made it worth his while with a sharp hiss and an upsurge of his hips.

“Yeah,” Dean said before turning his head to catch Sam’s lips in another kiss. He’d wrapped his hand more firmly around Sam, his fingers running smooth over Sam’s sensitive skin as his thumb teased at the slit. Sam shivered—he wasn’t going to last long at all. He was too tired and too keyed up.

A few more pulls and Sam’s body was shuddering with his orgasm, his dick pulsing in Dean’s hand and making a mess out of Dean’s chest. Sam’s hips jerked hard, slamming up into Dean’s grip one last time before what was left of his energy leeched out of him and he was left lying limp against the bed, too worn out to move besides the easy glide of his hand on Dean. His eyes opened lazily to meet Dean’s tightly shut ones as Dean mouthed unspoken words of encouragement. Sam took a deep, shaky breath and then glanced downward. Dean’s dick was sliding quickly in and out of Sam’s fist—half because of Sam’s lazy motion and half because of the rhythmic motions of Dean’s hips. Sam eyed the puddles of white now cooling on Dean’s skin and—unthinkingly—he reached out and wiped some up with his fingers before bringing it back to rub against Dean’s cock—easing the motion with the slickness of his come.

Dean’s teeth sank into his bottom lip and his back arched as he came, his hips losing their rhythm and his breathing growing rough with a slight whine at the end of each exhale. Sam found he liked it and tried to devote himself to wringing out even louder noises from Dean until finally shoved him away. “Fuck, stop,” he whispered with a shudder. He flopped against the bed, drained.

They laid there, side by side in the darkness of the motel room, the hoarse rattle of their shallow panting echoing through the silence. Sam waited, his heart thumping wildly, expecting Dean to comment on what they’d just done. All he got was silence.

After awhile, Sam finally broke it. “Dean?” he asked quietly. Dean jerked beside him and Sam suddenly realized that Dean had just been sleeping. Not that he could blame him. Sam blinked furiously, trying to fight back his own weariness. “Dean?”

Dean stirred, turning more onto his side to peer at Sam with one blurry eye. “What?” he asked. He scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand before apparently realizing where that hand had just been and wiping it on his jeans. God, they hadn’t even gotten undressed all the way. Sam stared at him in the dark.

“Are…are we going to talk about this?” They had to, right? This was major. This was serious. You didn’t do something like, oh, jerk off your brother without talking about it, right? And, more importantly, was Sam going to get the chance to do it again?

“No,” Dean said, leaving Sam still confused, with a tiny bit of fear unfurling in his gut. If Dean didn’t want to talk about it, did that mean that… Dean sighed. “Just go to sleep, Sam. We’re just fine.”

Sam frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means that you’re fine and I’m fine and we’re fine,” Dean replied shortly. “Now go to sleep.” He rolled over onto his back and made a half-abortive attempt to roll onto his side before thinking better of it because of the swollen gauze that was masquerading as his ankle.

For Dean, the conversation was obviously over but Sam couldn’t just leave it at that. He tentatively rubbed his knuckles against Dean’s side—oddly shy now considering what they had just done. “And this?” he asked. “Is this fine?”

Dean snorted. “Fucked-up is what it is, Sam.” Sam’s heart gave a painful squeeze, wondering if Dean was saying what he thought that he was. “…Which puts us on track for us. Now shut the fuck up and cuddle or whatever it is you want to do and _sleep_.”

Sam froze, not really daring to believe what he was hearing. “So, we’re…”

“…doing this,” Dean finished, his eyes still closed. “Yeah. I guess we are.”

Dean didn’t fight Sam when Sam wrapped his arms around him besides a sleepy complaint to ‘mind the damn leg’ and Sam’s heart sped up as he carefully curled himself around Dean’s body. He rested his hand against Dean’s chest, just feeling the steady beat of Dean’s heart, confirming that he was real—that he was alive—and a surge of giddiness zipped through Sam. Brothers didn’t do this sort of thing—not normal ones—but he and Dean had never been ‘normal.’ They’d known that for years. Dean stirred sleepily and placed a hand over Sam’s wrist, holding him in place and Sam took a deep, steadying breath.

Outside, the wind was starting to howl with another oncoming storm and Sam smiled at the noise. The world outside was about to be wracked again with the wrath of the White Queen but, inside, safe beside Dean, Sam felt warm.

The mayhem around them could do its worst.

  
[Part I](http://dragonspell.livejournal.com/169785.html) | [Part II](http://dragonspell.livejournal.com/170432.html) | [Art Post](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/76591.html)

View more art at [](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/profile)[**lightthesparks**](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/).

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